Wednesday, November 26, 2008

David Cook 'Crushes' David Archuleta

First week sales figures are in for David Cook's first album, and while he debuted on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart at #3, he still managed to sell 280,000 copies in the first week.

David Archuleta's self-titled debut entered at #2 last week, but sold almost 100,000 less copies (total = 183,000).

As of November, David Cook's debut single "The Time Of My Life" has sold over 1 million copies. It was released in May. David Archuleta's "Crush" is at about 992,000 sold, and was released in August.

Yeah, I have that Archuleta album. I haven't listened to it past song #4, because, quite frankly, I've heard more thrilling standards in the elevator at my dentist's office.

Meanwhile, Beyoncé's I Am...Sasha Fierce is the best-selling album this week, but has low sales figures in its first week of 482,000. By comparison, her 2006 album, B'Day, sold 541,000 out of the gate.

The numbers are in! Last Wednesday, rightful American Idol winner David Archuleta posted first-week sales of 183,000 for his masterful debut record David Archuleta, landing the coveted No. 2 position on the Billboard 200. This morning it was announced that David Cook, Archuleta's balder, pitchier nemesis, managed to unload 280,000 copies of his new CD last week, which was only good enough for an abysmal No. 3 placement on today's chart — embarrassing! Better luck next time, Cook!

What, are they huffing Clorox and forgetting basic math in the New York offices? The chart positions are only different because you have to figure in each week's other releases. The sales figures speak the loudest.

12 Comments:

Do give Archie's album a listen all the way through, D'luv. It's not a "life-changing" album by any means, but it's a natural place for him to start. I almost gave up on it after the dismal Track 2, but thankfully that was the only real dud on the disc. Cookie's album is pretty good, though I've only heard half of it so far (the rest I'll listen to today).

It'll be interesting -- even to me -- which album I end up liking better ... I'll have to get to work on that blog post, I guess....

It's such a stretch to try and compare both albums. Most folks are going to have a strong preference toward either the mainstream pop or the mainstream rock. The whole Cook/Archuleta thing cracks me up, though. Have we conquered world hunger and disease?

Crush has now been certified PLATINUM, while Light On languishes on the sales charts... Cook may have outsold Archuleta album wise, but I will take Archuleta over Cook in single sales, and in longevity... Cook is a one note, one dimensional "seen it all before" wanna be rocker... Archuleta fills a void in the market that it's needed for a long time - a bona fide male pop star... who is young, attractive, can sing, and appeals to young and old. My money is on Archuleta for staying power and long term success...

It's really interesting that Cook only sold 97,000 more units his first week compared to Archuleta, especially when you take into account the fact that Cook won AI by quite a substantial number of votes. The sales really do not reflect that at all I expected them to be considerable higher than they were. Daughtry outsold him in first week sales as did Taylor Hicks. Cooks sales are only going to continue going down because his album really isn't very good. I think Archuleta is going to remain on the charts longer than Cook and subsequently have higher sales overall.